


let us continue our unfinished path

by unwindmyself



Series: 'cause there's no salvation for a bad girl [8]
Category: Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/F, Femslash, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Character Death, Problematic Vampire Behavior, Vampire Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 06:01:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20169322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwindmyself/pseuds/unwindmyself
Summary: Jessica tracks down that missing girl. It doesn't go according to plan.





	let us continue our unfinished path

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Isn't it a shame that Jessica Jones ended after one season and a crossover into The Defenders? It's really too bad. Jessica could have done so much learning and growing and developing as a character and a hero, and Trish deserved to achieve her dreams of being a hero and also staying clean and stuff, because she was doing a pretty good job except that one time where she had to not be clean to help. And they were each other's everything! So much could have come of that. We could have had it aaaaaaaaaaaallllllll. Etcetera.
> 
> Not that it matters particularly because this is an AU, but that deserves to be said.
> 
> 2\. This is basically just a vampire remix of the Hope Shlottman origin story. She's been through all of the canon trauma, which is discussed not insignificantly. Jess and Trish's various traumas are also discussed. You shouldn't be particularly surprised by this, but I wanted to warn you. Sorry, Hope. It's only going to get better from here!
> 
> 3\. Kilgrave is in this story, but fuck him, he doesn't deserve a tag. All he does is be terrible and get killed. But he's terrible, and again, that's discussed not insignificantly. If you don't wanna deal with him, skip to the first linebreak. He's dead by then.

There’s a low, constant wailing noise coming from somewhere in this godforsaken house (an actual condemned Victorian, the cliché of which makes Jessica shiver) and it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s not just Jessica’s magic vampire super-ears that are picking up on it.

At least that means she’s not going to retrieve a corpse.

Probably.

She kicks down the front door without giving a fuck (this place clearly isn’t owned by humans, hence her ability _to _kick down the door, and if the city is going to tear this place down anyway, she’s technically being helpful or something) and storms inside, searching for the stairs to the basement once she realizes that’s where the noise is coming from. She considers just smashing through the floors to speed it up, but she doesn’t feel like landing in a tangle of pipes or some shit, or god forbid on top of the girl she’s meant to rescue.

And hey, if she’s alive enough to cry, she’s alive enough to wait the thirty seconds it takes Jessica to get to her.

“Shit,” she mutters as soon as she’s down the stairs. It’s worse than she thought, although not worse than she should have been prepared for: more than one drained body in the corner, that vague stench of cologne and death that _he _carries with him. The girl is stringy-haired and wan, laid out on her back and unmoving. That’s probably because of the sideways, marionetted way her leg is positioned (Jessica is no doctor, but she knows broken bones when she sees them) or because of…

Ugh. Shit.

“Help me,” the girl chokes out, lifting her head to meet Jessica’s eyes. Goddammit. She really is just a kid, looking not unlike Trish did at this age, though (what a standard) Dorothy didn’t leave her daughter laying around in négligées. Looking at her, Jessica can’t detach herself from this fucked-up situation anymore. This isn’t just a job. This is a real person who needs her help. This is Hope Shlottman, age 19, college freshman and track star.

It’s like he picked this girl out just to torture Jessica herself.

“How long have you been down here?” Jessica asks in a whisper.

Hope shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she says, and it seems like she’s having trouble getting the words out right. “I don’t know, I just, I’ve been, it’s been…”

This is probably what Natasha’s little fairy was on about, the way Hope’s thoughts are fragmented. Only now they’re spilling out of her in a rush, and is it really a surprise? This is probably the first time in a long time she’s been asked a question that she wasn’t glamoured into answering “appropriately.”

“Okay,” Jessica says. “Can you move?” She already knows the answer, but she asks anyway.

Hope shakes her head. “He said to stay. I’m supposed to stay.”

If Jessica had any lingering doubt about who, exactly, had pulled off this abduction (she didn’t) they’d be gone now.  
“He’s a vampire, right?” Jessica prompts. “Why didn’t he heal you?”

“Punishment,” Hope whispers. “I tried running. I ran, he hurt me, I tried again, even though, so now, now I…”

Jessica punches a hole in the wall. “Of course. Fucker.”

“You’re Jessica,” Hope says suddenly, staring at her with wide, unnerving eyes, and it makes Jessica want to throw up even though she knows she can’t. “He talks about you.”

“He what now?” Jessica asks.

“Your Maker,” Hope insists. “He talks about you.”

Cold shoots through Jessica’s body, but she pushes it off. This is no time to panic. “I’m getting you out,” she says instead.

“How?” Hope asks, bitterly enough that Jessica really has to shake off the déjà vu. “I can’t move, remember? I’m right where he wants me, right where I belong, right where he wants me, right where -”

Jessica bites her own wrist and holds it out for Hope. “Drink,” she says. “It’ll heal you.”

“All of me?” Hope asks doubtfully. “Pretty sure it won’t, it can’t, he made me watch, he killed my parents. He fucked me and he killed my parents. It can’t fix that.”

“Okay,” Jessica grimaces, “it’ll heal your leg. The other stuff takes time. We don’t have that if you want to get out before he comes back.”

“Won’t work,” Hope mutters, “he always knows, he’ll hear…”

“He’s a psychotic vampire, not Beetlejuice,” Jessica snaps. “C’mon, drink. It’s gross, but less gross than broken bones and infections.”

Hope looks stricken. “What if the damage is done? What if I never run again? That’s all I am.”

“Better drink and pray it works,” Jessica says, too irritably.

Begrudgingly, Hope starts drinking, seeming to get a little more mobile with each few drops. Her leg starts mending itself, slow but sure, and there’s a brief moment where everything seems like it’ll go well when -

“Isn’t this a pretty picture?” asks a lazy British voice behind them.

“Turn around and walk out of here,” Jessica says in a low, emotionless voice.

“Or what?”

“Or I won’t stake you with the bedpost.”

Lightning-fast, he zooms to the bed and hauls Hope, her leg not quite fully healed, up by the throat. “Jessica,” he says pityingly. “Jessie. No kiss hello for the man who gave you new life?”

“You mean the man that raped me, murdered me, then raped me again?” Jessica hisses. “I won’t let you do that to another girl, Kilgrave.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d just stayed where I wanted you,” he replies smoothly.

“Right where he wants me,” Hope mutters, “right where I belong, right where -”

“Oh, shut up,” Kilgrave groans, and Hope’s mouth snaps closed abruptly. “See, Jessie, this is what I mean. You didn’t have such a need to whinge.”

“You killed her parents,” Jessica says sharply. “I get where she’s coming from.”

He sighs. “That was another thing I loved about you,” he says. “You didn’t have anyone but me, so you were free.”

“You’re a moron,” Jessica retorts, shaking off thoughts of Trish so she can focus on the fight and not the what-ifs. “Drop the girl or I drop you.”

“But if you do that, I take sweet Hope with me,” he counters, and Hope’s eyes widen, which hadn’t seemed possible. “More accurately, I crush her windpipe. Are you ready for another girl’s blood on your hands?”

Jessica flinches. Hope is pleading voicelessly for Jessica to end him, never mind if she dies herself. Kilgrave’s hand tightens on Hope’s throat.

Jessica has to make a decision. Not historically one of her stronger suits.

She snaps the bedpost off (thank christ it’s a wood bedframe) and plunges it through his heart, but as he explodes, he chokes Hope into unconsciousness and lets her collapse.

Into the puddle of his viscera. Gross.

“Shit,” Jessica says again. She falls to her knees to feel for Hope’s pulse, but just when she’s located it and thinks they’re in the clear, she notices the little nick just above Hope’s trachea. A nick that smells toxic.

He didn’t just choke her. He stabbed poison into her. Why would she have expected any less? Why would she have expected a happy ending? She’s not meant for those.

“Shit,” Jessica says for what feels like the millionth time, and she makes another possibly terrible decision. “Please forgive me, Hope.”

* * *

Trish wakes the next night with the sunset and dresses for what she assumes will be a lot of nothing. She’s too distracted to record anything, she’s the wrong kind of buzzed to clean or do anything practical, she hates going out without Jessica because she’s too nice and/or panicky to deal with alleged fans. 

She settles for painting her nails and reading a breezy romance novel like a good bored housewife (all that’s missing is the sneaky cocktail) and she figures she’ll probably be at it for the better part of the night until the front door slams open and a scrawny, vaguely familiar blonde girl stomps in.

“This is your fault!” she shouts, throwing a duffel bag on the floor and making the most aggressively sullen face possible.

“Was I supposed to just leave you to die?” That’s Jessica, following after and sounding none too perturbed.

“Yes!” the girl exclaims. “I’ve got nobody. Nowhere to go. Nothing to live for.”

“You wanna just go out and wait for sunrise?” Jessica snarks.

This shuts the new girl up, and (after rolling her eyes so dramatically that it proves she’s no older than twenty) she notices Trish on the couch and blinks. “Uh.”

Trish shrugs cheerfully. “Likewise.”

Jessica rolls _her _eyes then and leans against the back of the couch. “Hope, this is Trish. Trish, this is Hope.”

“Hope as in the missing girl?” Trish asks.

“Hope, give us a minute,” Jessica says, and she hauls Trish up and drags her into the next room for a conference.

“Too many variables,” Trish says, meaning she doesn’t know where to start.

“It was fuckface that had her,” Jessica begins, shutting the door. “Just like we thought.”

“Shit.” This time it’s Trish saying it. “Did he…”

“Rape her, kill her parents, and try to cripple her?” Jessica supplies. “Yup. Then I threatened to kill him, so he threatened to kill her.”

“Oh, no, Jess,” Trish says. “He’s…?”

“I staked him,” Jessica says. “And right as he went to pieces he stabbed her with some poison something. She wasn’t dead, but she would have been soon. Even a dumbass like me could tell that. So I stepped in.”

“Never took you for the mothering type,” Trish says, and it takes Jessica a moment to realize she’s joking (poorly).

“Brat isn’t a good look on you,” Jessica grumbles.

“You thought differently the other night,” Trish points out, pouting dramatically.

“I hate you,” Jessica sighs.

“Yeah, yeah,” Trish says nonchalantly. They do this pretty often, the bickering; it’s because they know it isn’t really more than venting, that it won’t hurt. They know each other’s limits. “We should go back. Poor thing is obviously freaking out.”

“That makes two of us,” Jessica mutters.

“You’ll be fine,” Trish soothes, kissing Jessica’s cheek. “We’ve got this.”

When they go back to the living room, Hope is on the chaise longue reading a magazine, still very teenage. “So,” she says, “I’m guessing Hope has two mommies.”

Jessica glowers at her. “I’m not your mom,” she says pointedly. “I’m sure some Makers are into that shit, but not me. Actually, I’m not into any shit with you.”

Hope smiles bitterly. “But I’m worth doing crimes for.”

“I give a shit,” Jessica replies, clearly dithering and uncomfortable with the emotion this entails. “But this wasn’t just -”

“Out of the frying pan,” Trish supplies eagerly.

“Huh?” Hope asks.

“I didn’t save you from an abusive rapist to abuse you and rape you myself,” Jessica says, a little more stern and a little less hesitant. “You’re a kid, and I’m spoken for or whatever.”

“Hence the second mommy,” Hope snarks.

“Yeah, seconded, actually, I don’t like that,” Trish says, making a face. “Trish. Just Trish.”

“Not Patsy?” Hope asks, eyes glinting like she’s testing boundaries (both other women recognize this). “I heard about you, too.”

But this is a boundary, one that can’t be pushed. “Back off,” Jessica growls, fangs popping. “If you’re pissed, take it out on me. Don’t put it on Trish.”

“Besides, Patsy died twenty years ago,” Trish says, somehow both smug and grim (Jessica’s defense of her gave her a moment to collect herself). “I wasn’t her and she wasn’t me.”

“Why were you pretending to be her, then?” Hope asks. “If you were so glad to be rid of her you became undead.”

Trish makes a face, but it’s a question she’ll have to address eventually and she knows that. Better just to get it over with. “Short answer, mommy issues,” she says. “Long answer, when you’re a kid and the only person you have to depend on tells you to jump off a cliff, you jump. Or they push you.”

“Dorothy was a piece of work,” Jessica adds. “Less said of her the better.”

“Were you even born yet?” Trish asks Hope, laughing. “No, right? She was a pimp and a pusher. She didn’t realize that would put her golden ticket in contact with vampires.” She rolls her eyes - the golden ticket is, of course, her. “I liked how doing V felt. Actually getting turned was an accident.”

“This life wasn’t any of our first choices,” Jessica says plainly. There’s no need to pretend otherwise. “But we get by. You can too, if you want.”

Hope doesn’t seem convinced. “Are either of you holding onto the memory of your loved ones’ dead bodies?”

“Actually, yeah,” they say in unison.

“Jess killed my mom,” Trish says.

“And Trish killed mine,” Jessica adds.

“How _Heavenly Creatures _of you,” Hope deadpans.

“We didn’t plan it that way,” Jessica says with annoyance. “Dorothy wanted Trish to turn her and threatened to kill her for refusing, so I stepped in.”

“Alisa was already a vampire,” Trish chimes in, “but a bad one.”

“After a car accident when I was a kid,” Jessica interjects. “Where I saw her corpse, my dad’s, and my brother’s too. Double mom death.”

“Anyway, she became a vampire, and eventually she tried to get Jess in her corner, violently, so I took care of it,” Trish finishes.

Hope nods. “But you’re not…”

“The bastard made me,” Jessica says. “Some other bastard made Trish. We’re not related, just close.”

“Right,” Hope says. “So now what?”

“Now I do late night indie radio and vampire-specific vlogging,” Trish says. “Jess is a PI.”

“Is that why you hunted me down?” Hope asks.

“Sort of,” Jessica says. “A friend of a friend -”

Trish snorts. “Friend is the wrong word. Elektra is the leader of our coven.”

“Coven is a _stupid _word,” Jessica snarks, “we’re not witches.”

“Well, it’s a nicer description than sex club,” Trish defends.

Hope’s eyebrows go all the way up. “Uh?”

“Not like a nightclub where you go to have sex,” Trish says quickly. “I mean, Elektra does own one of those, and we usually meet there, but I’m referring to a group of us that get together to have sex.”

“And be friends,” Jessica says. “Or whatever passes for that. Anyway. One of Elektra’s friends who leads a different coven - see, it sounds dumb - saw you at a club and her psychic -”

“Telepathic,” Trish corrects. “Fairies are telepathic.”

“Wait, there are _fairies _now?” Hope interrupts.

“This one’s a fairy vampire, even” Jessica says, smirking. “It’s weird. I don’t know the details, I haven’t met her yet. But she got the sense that something was up, so Nat got people on the case. I recognized the bastard’s MO when the story went out, so I took a personal interest. This wasn’t the end I imagined either.”

“Maybe not,” Hope says cautiously, like she’s thinking things over, and shyly she decides, “I mean, I guess I might as well give this a try. You did go to a lot of trouble.”

Jessica and Trish do their thing of having an entire conversation with their eyes, then Trish heads for the fridge and says, “You must be hungry.”

“Ugh, yes,” Hope groans. “Is blood gross? It seems gross.”

“You didn’t feed her at _all _on the way home?” Trish scolds Jessica.

“Kinda in a hurry,” Jessica shrugs, and then to Hope she says, “You get used to it. The fake stuff is better than nothing, and no offense, but you’re definitely not ready for a live meal yet.”

Hope touches her own neck self-consciously, clearly remembering being on the other (unwilling) end of the blood-drinking equation, and Jessica feels seriously shitty for joking about that. Did he come close to draining her? How many times? Did he drain her parents while she watched? Was it pure luck she hadn’t died before Jessica got there?

Before she can dwell on this, Trish returns with a warm mug of synthetic blood, shrugging. “It’s okay if you never wanna feed on humans,” she says. “A lot of vampires don’t. That’s the point of TruBlood.”

“Not having to kill people?” Hope asks. “I mean, good job figuring that one out.”

“Not all vampires kill when they feed, and there are actually some people who like being bitten,” Trish offers. “It’s not always negative, but… yeah. We’ll get to that later.” It’s obvious Hope isn’t ready to learn about all of the complexities of fangbangers this soon after being forced to do a stint as one herself.

Hope nods and focuses on her A- for awhile, sipping surprisingly daintily for a ravenous newborn. Then out of nowhere, she asks, “This fairy vampire, was she a cute goth girl?”

* * *

They set Hope up in the biggest guest room (Trish was in charge of everything house-related, so there’s more than enough space, furniture, changes of clothes, and whatever else a visitor could need) and retire a couple hours before sunrise. It’s at this point that Trish flops on the bed and pouts at Jessica until she joins.

Okay. Maybe the brat thing works better than Jessica wants to admit.

It doesn’t really last long, though, it never does; as soon as Jessica is on the bed Trish brushes hair out of her eyes and asks, “You okay?”

Jessica huffs in her noncommittal way.

“I mean, this is a lot of shit all at once,” Trish continues.

“I’m not dead, Hope’s not dead, Kilgrave _is _dead,” Jessica says tiredly. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Because you had to see him again? Because you suddenly have a whole new person to worry about?”

“She’s an adult, Trish,” Jessica scoffs. “She can keep herself alive, it’s not like a literal baby just dropped on our doorstep.”

“We must be remembering turning differently,” Trish cracks, though it’s not really funny. “_I _remember being miserable and not knowing a thing.”

“Yeah, but you were probably kinda strung out,” Jessica says, rubbing Trish’s arm consolingly when she winces. “Plus your shitbag Maker abandoned you. That’s a recipe for neediness.”

Trish rolls her eyes. “You had a great time, then?”

“No,” Jessica says, “but I’m not going to fuck Hope over. I just don’t need to helicopter, either.”

“I’d stop you if you did,” Trish says.

“Yeah, I know,” Jessica replies, kissing Trish quickly. “You’re the angel on my shoulder or whatever. That’s why I’m not freaked. You’re actually decent at taking care of people.”

“You are too,” Trish says, nuzzling into Jessica’s neck because it’s always easier for them to have these conversations if they’re not looking in each other’s eyes. “Even if you’re loathe to admit it.”

“Oh, spare me the poetry,” Jessica groans, kissing Trish’s hair.


End file.
